The Flight anthology made its debut at the 2004 comic con, so we’re really only 3 years in–but, point taken!

1) There’s just something that strikes me as wrong about an award where one guy gets a trade published by Image and another person is publishing a $5 mini-comic.

2) I think learning how to self-publish scratch to funnybook shop has value. I think there’s something to be said for an entire generation of people who aren’t cowed by the process of publication, and this cuts into that.

3) If you’re allowed to buy the distribution services of an established publisher, why not allow the person to hire Sean Phillips to re-draw it?

4) We need more micro- and self-publishers than Image needs another damn trade. Would Hutch Owens been as cool if it had come out from FBI?

There’s a lot of knowledge to be gained from learning how to self-publish, but it’s not knowledge everyone needs to learn, and that money can still be used very effectively in different ways than just paying the print bill.

I wanna see Image and Alternative and a bunch of publishers stop releasing graphic novels with no audience. I’m willing to give Xeric stuff more-or-less a pass at least in that regard (although I did decide to actually engage one in this week’s reviews), but I don’t know who’s supposed to be buying a lot of the graphic novels from mid-tier publishers released to the market these days. I’d love to see more folks test the market for a book without printing a 150-200 page graphic novel by a relative unkown, and minis (or web serialisation, or full-size comics, or lots of different things) seem a lot smarter to me.

There’s also the not-entirely-unconnected problem of graphic novels that exist as film pitches first, “Proof of Concept” instead of, you know, literature. But I don’t think anyone would ever accuse Alternative of that…

I don’t think it’s as easy as deciding winners based on format, but I would 100% rather have seen that $5000 or whatever going to promoting his webcomic, rather than what we got. I’ve got boxes and boxes of mini-comics, I’m a big fan of the production method and the aesthetic, but I feel like the Xeric grant opens a few doors with Diamond and with retailers that this dude in particular just didn’t walk through with his book.

As for your minis vs. trade paperback arguments: Fuck yeah. I think it’s mean to pick on either Image or Alternative when they’re only representative of the problem, not the sum total of it, and I’d say at this point both of those companies have successes to counter-balance their failures. But there could be some more considered decisions on both of their parts, for sure…

We should have a bitchy talk about this at some point, it’d make for good blogging.

Anyway, I’m not comparing anything, just making the historical point. My understanding is that Xeric folks make the way they want to do their comic part of their proposal, and if that’s true, then I guess everything would be on the table. I don’t think a $5 mini-comic is the best format to choose, but if the Xeric Foundation were to suddenly be more rigorous about things, they would probably have given away about 1/3 the grants they have over the last five year.

I wonder if you could get a Xeric to do a webcomic and spend all the money on web marketing? I really don’t know.

Evan- I really, really don’t come off well in the “I can’t believe you don’t like that artist!” game. Exceptionally poorly. Luckily, Peter (who owns The Beguiling) tends to really enjoy many of the artists-of-note that I’m indifferent about, and that balances it out a little. But yeah, I was reading the stuff excerpted in the journal and it was doing zero for me. It’s that kind of work where I can tell it’s accomplished and even discuss how and why, but personally it leaves me cold.

Matthew- It’s 48 pages I guess, but… I dunno, the whole package doesn’t hold up for me… I don’t think the Xeric Foundation attaches many strings.

Tom- Thick oozing bile.

I liked Silverfish. I like pretty much anything Lapham does (with the exception of that Batman City of Crime junk). I thought it might’ve been a little light on character development but the fast pace of the story helped me not care.

And yeah, I deal with WWH the same way. Hulk sure does smash.

Hope you’re feeling better soon, buddy.